Parental involvement in matchmaking may distort the choice of spouse because parents are willing to substitute love for market and household production, which are more sharable between parents and their children. This paper finds supportive evidence in a survey of Chinese couples. In both rural...

Using proprietary data from Alibaba, we examine how the 2015 Food Safety Law (FSL) affects e-commerce in China. The FSL requires most food sellers on e-commerce platforms to obtain a valid online license for retail food handling. Because the FSL was rolled out progressively, we have a rare...

Some argue that large platforms, such as Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft (or GAFAM), are unusual in their number, pace and concentration of technology mergers, with the potential to harm market competition. Using a unique taxonomy developed by S&P Global Market...

Quality certification is a common tool to reduce asymmetric information and enhance trust in marketplaces. Should the certificate focus on seller inputs such as fast shipping, or include output measures such as consumer ratings? In theory, incorporating output measures makes the certificate more...

Using sportscard grading as an example, we employ field experiments to investigate empirically the informational role of professional certifiers. In the past 20 years, professional grading of sportscards has evolved in a way that provides a unique opportunity to measure the information provision...